West Vancouver’s Katie Fleckenstein won gold at the Canada Winter Games Friday, dominating the competition in the ski cross finals held at Tabor Mountain near Prince George.
Fleckenstein’s win was all the more impressive considering she’d never competed in a ski cross competition before. The 15-yer-old also competed in her preferred alpine races at the Games, but it was in ski cross that she cruised all the way to the top of the podium.
Fleckenstein finished first in ski cross qualifying on Thursday and then won all of her elimination heats on Friday, holding off her Team B.C. teammate Nicole Mah in the final to claim gold.
“Yesterday I won the timed run so I had a bit of confidence going into it today,” Fleckenstein stated in a Team B.C. release. “And as I was going through my heats today I was winning so I was getting more and more into it. To win the gold was amazing, it was just so much fun.”
Fleckenstein finished seventh in Super G, 10th in slalom and crashed in her preferred race, the slalom, earlier in the Games.
Despite the win, Fleckenstein isn’t sure if a full-time switch to ski cross is in her future.
“Ski cross is fun, but the alpine, you’re by yourself and doing your own thing,” she told Postmedia News. “And just the way the ski feels is nicer.”
